Various bulk material shipping containers are known. Such known material bulk shipping containers, sometimes referred to herein for brevity as known containers or as known bulk containers, are used to transport a wide range of products, parts, components, items, and materials such as, but not limited to, seeds, shavings, fasteners, and granular materials. These are sometimes called loose materials. There are various disadvantages with such known bulk material shipping containers.
For example, one known and widely commercially used known bulk container for shipping materials (such as shipping seeds to farms) is sold by Buckhorn Industries. This known bulk container is made from plastic, weighs about 338 pounds (151.9 kilograms), and holds a maximum of 58.3 cubic feet of material. This known container has a bottom section, a top section, and a cover. To use this known container, loaders at a bulk material supplier must remove the cover, remove the top section from the bottom section, flip the top section upside down, place the flipped top section on the bottom section, fill the container, and then place the cover on the flipped top section. This process requires at least two people and a relatively significant amount of time when filling a large quantity of these containers. In certain instances, specifically configured forklift attachments are required to fill and handle this known container. After this known container is shipped to its ultimate destination (such as a farm), the bulk material (such as seed) is unloaded from the container, and the empty container must be shipped back to the material supplier. However, prior to and for shipping back to the supplier, the cover is removed, the flipped top section is removed from the bottom section, the flipped top section is then flipped back over and placed on the bottom section, and the cover is then placed on the top section and fastened with zip ties. This process also requires at least two people and is relatively time consuming especially for a large quantity of such containers.
Another disadvantage of this known container is that this container is made from plastic and if one or more of the three sections of the container (i.e., the bottom, the top, or the cover) is damaged or cracked, than that entire damaged or cracked section typically must be replaced (instead of being repaired). This adds additional cost, time out of service for the damaged container, and additional material and energy waste.
Another disadvantage of this known container is that when disassembled (for shipping empty), only two of these containers can be stacked on top of each other and still fit in a conventional shipping container or truck. This tends to leave wasted space in such shipping containers and trucks, and thus increases the overall cost of shipping (including related fuel costs) and energy waste.
Additional disadvantages of this known container are that: (a) the cover can be easily lost or misplaced; (b) the cover can be easily damaged; (c) this known container is less weather resistant because the cover is readily removable and only attached by zip ties; (d) the insides and outside surfaces are difficult to clean; (e) a material holding bag is not readily usable with this container, such that this container can not be used for certain types of loose materials; and (f) the contents held by the container can be easily contaminated due in part to the configuration and use of the lid.
To solve these problems, new bulk material shipping containers have been developed, such as those disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0103848 and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0152798, which are owned by the assignee of the present application.
One issue that has arisen with respect to these new bulk material shipping containers is in the unloading of the materials from these new containers. In various uses, certain of these new bulk material shipping containers need to be supported above the ground to be unloaded. One way this had been done is by using a fork lift to hold the container above the ground in the unloading area during the unloading process. This is not preferred and ties up the use of the fork lift. Another issue that has arisen with respect to these new bulk material shipping containers is that they tend to unload the contents fairly quickly, and thus they may not work optimally in certain situations where the contents need to be unloaded slowly or in batches.
Accordingly, there is a need for a bulk material shipping container unloading apparatus.